NEW ROUTE LINKS RUSSIA WITH INDIA

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 13, 3 July 1944, Page 31

NEW ROUTE LINKS RUSSIA WITH INDIA

Ancient Camel Track Rebuilt Swiftly— tons borne by Trucks Each Month By John MacCormac in the New York Times, March 26, 1944

How a camel track centuries old has been remodelled into a broad motor highway over which 7,000 tons of supplies are rolling every month from India to Russia was revealed to-day by the Agency-General for India. The route has brought India’s resources to within a week’s road journey from Russia’s southern border. It is the East Persia route, built swiftly but secretly by a pick-and-shovel army of

30,000 men, women, and children from Zahidan, near the Iranian-Baluchistan frontier through Iran to Bajgiran. It was constructed mainly as an alternate to the West Persian railroad route from the Persian Gulf, in case that were cut by theGerman Army. Now it supplements it. Although it has been in use for many months, only now have the facts of its construction and statistics of traffic been published.

A few years before the war Russia built a railway-line to the Iranian frontier. Iran adjoins Baluchistan, a country within the borders of India and under British domination. A railwayline runs from Zahidan to Quetta in Baluchistan, connecting there with a line to the Indian port of Karachi. , Countless camels had worn a rough way over rock and sand from Zahidan northwest, then north-east through Iran to the Russian border. It was 800 miles long, but of this only about 200 miles was passable for trucks. The job was to build a motor highway over the other 600 miles of mountain and desert, some of the mountains being 7,000 ft. high. Since no machinery was available it had to be made entirely “by hand.” But haste was advisable, since a German push in Russia might have cut the west Persian route. The job was completed in eight months, an average’ of three miles a day. Four foreign contracting firms, represented respectively by a Dane, a Norwegian, a Czech, and an Australian, built the road with the assistance of Greek, Yugoslav, Belgian, Russian, Turk, Italian, Bulgar, and Rumanian supervisors. Workers were recruited from Iranian towns and villages. Water and food for men and beasts were carried by camel.

Mountain passes had to be widened. In one valley eight miles of raised roadway was laid with twelve-foot protection ditches to divert flood-waters. -In winter it was difficult to work because of the intense cold in the mountain passes and the snow drifted by a constant north wind. In summer the temperature reached 130 degrees, which compelled a long noon-day stop. As with the Burma road, there were difficulties with civilian merchants. More than 1,600 dollars had to be paid for an urgently needed truck tire, and 160 dollars for a car battery. But river-beds were paved, drains were laid, and hundreds of bridges built. Despite the hodge podge of nationalities, the workers got along together without trouble. Now, it is said, the quantity of jute, rubber, hessian, iron and steel, copper, tin, and mercury that India can send Russia is limited only by the number of available trucks. Already more than one thousand trucks, most provided by India, are employed to capacity. This number is to be greatly increased. The political effects of the route may be. lasting. A round trip can now be made in ten days. The first such link between India and Russia it represents a rapprochement which the British Government, for political reasons, would scarcely have encouraged before the war.